Redcar Conservative MP Jacob Young wants the Government to get out of our lives in 2021

Though standing as the Tory candidate in his native Redcar in last December’s General Election, he “hadn’t really anticipated becoming an MP” but got the shift off work at the local Wilton industrial site, where he worked as a process operator for a petrochemicals company.

“I watched the exit poll come in, the BBC said we’d lost Redcar”, he said. “So I turned up at the leisure centre, thinking ‘oh well, I started with nothing and finished with nothing’ and I walked in, and the atmosphere was so tense when I walked in.

“And you could tell that something was up, and that then started what ended up becoming quite possibly the strangest year of my life.”

Against his expectations, the then-26-year-old had overturned the majority of incumbent Labour MP Anna Turley to win with a majority of 3,500 himself, just one of the results which showed a seismic shift in voting behaviour in many areas of northern England.

For Mr Young, who studied at Redcar & Cleveland College and trained as an apprentice technician, becoming the first ever Tory MP in a constituency that has historically been part of North Yorkshire presented some immediate logistical difficulties.

“The good thing was that my shift team was at work and once the result was declared I called my shift manager and said ‘I’m really sorry, I was supposed to be days on Tuesday, you’re going to have to get some cover for me because I’m going down to Westminster’.

“That just started this crazy year, which has probably been one of the most challenging years of my life but equally one of the most fulfilling. No-one anticipated this year looking like the way it’s been and you think back to December last year, and coronavirus wasn’t even being talked about.

“You would never have thought that the Government would be shutting businesses, you’d never thought the Government would be paying 80 per cent of people’s wages, it’s just been an unprecedented year.”

One of dozens of new Conservatives MPs in former Labour strongholds entering Parliament for the first time, he believes the breadth of life experience amongst the new intake is “encouraging for the future of the country”.

“I remember the first time we walked in the House of Commons chamber and you sit on the green benches and you look around and you think ‘wow, flipping heck, I can’t believe I’m here’,” he tells The Yorkshire Post. “And then the next thing you think is ‘these seats are really comfy actually’.

“And then the third thing is you look at the opposition benches, they are all looking back at you with quite angry faces because you’ve replaced their best mate in your constituency.

“It’s so intimidating, that first time you’re in the chamber, for a whole host of reasons. But actually what what I found is that the House of Commons staff and everyone down there has been really welcoming.”

It was on January 2 that Boris Johnson, riding an election wave and full of promises about ‘levelling up’ the economy, predicted 2020 would be a “fantastic year”.

And though the damage wrought to the economy by the pandemic has meant less money to spend on projects to achieve that aim, Mr Young believes it has accelerated other areas to the benefit of his constituency.

“When you’re in a period of just growth anyway, there’s an inclination to just carry on how things are going and to not bring about that sort of destructive change.

“But because of COVID, because of the economic shocks that’s happened, actually out of that we’ve been able to shape how our recovery is going to look. And so that meant that some of our plans for green energy and green industry in Teesside have been brought forward in many ways. So it’s been positive in that sense.”

The SSI steelworks which used to dominate Redcar closed in 2015 but has now been taken under the control of a mayoral development corporation as part of ambitious plans which could bring thousands of skilled jobs to the area.

And Mr Young cites the more than £200m in government support for the efforts to transform the site as evidence that the ‘levelling-up’ agenda is being felt.

”This is levelling-up in action. Direct investment into these communities, led by local people and local priorities. And ultimately, the Teeswork site is going to create those jobs for my constituents in the long run. The best way to level up any community is to give it jobs and prosperity for the future.”

Speaking before the emergence of a new strain of Covid and Tier 4 restrictions in London and the South East, the 27-year-old MP says he is looking forward to restrictions being lifted altogether in 2021.

“To be honest, that’s one of the hardest moments in this last year was voting for that lockdown legislation, the first line of which was, ‘you must not leave your house, except for...’ and for me as a Conservative to think that the government would be instructing people to stay inside, it was an incredibly difficult vote.

“And so I want to see in the next year government getting back out of people’s lives and letting people get on with their lives without us interfering.

“And actually, I am really positive about the next year because I think there is positive news about the vaccine, and the roll out of mass testing means that we are going to be lifting these restrictions.

“And once these restrictions are lifted, actually, people are going to feel great, because this dark cloud that has hovered over the country for the last 12 months, we’re finally free of it and we can go out and meet people we can, we can go and give our grandma a hug and do whatever we want to do without fearing the virus anymore, so that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Brexit

Two-thirds of Mr Young's constituents in Redcar voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, and the MP says despite the uncertainty of negotiations with Brussels local businesses are prepared for whatever comes.

He says: "I don't think the vast majority of people want us to leave without a trade deal, we all want that agreement.

"But equally I think back to the 2016 referendum, I was stood on Redcar high street in the rain in 2015, launching the Vote Leave campaign up here.

"And I think back to all those conversations we had with people about what they wanted to see out of Brexit.

"And to think that we would step away from any of those commitments like taking back control of our laws, taking back control of our fishing waters, taking back control of our borders, people want us to deliver on what we promised we would."